GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Two more farms will be included in Kent County’s controversial farmland preservation program after a close call last week and a lengthy debate Thursday that convinced two opponents of the program to change their minds.

The Kent County Commission voted Thursday, Feb. 28 to include two more farms in the county’s Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program, which has sparked controversy since it was first approved more than a decade ago.

Finance committee Chairman Harold Voorhees, R-Wyoming, who last week cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of including the farms, on Thursday at first said he would oppose the move but later announced his support after others convinced him to stay true to the county’s budget process.

Commissioner Dick VanderMolen, R-Kentwood, voted against the move during last week’s committee meeting, but said he also was swayed by the same argument and voted in favor of including the two farms. The program has drawn controversy especially since county taxpayers began funding it in 2010 with $275,000 of general fund money.

Opponents say that broke a promise made when the program was first approved in 2002 that the program would be funded only with private sources.

Thursday’s move places in the program 74 acres in Grattan Township owned by the Oren S. and Dorothy M. Frost trust and 38 acres in Sparta Township owned by Stephen VanOeffelen.

The program pays farmers the difference between the development and agricultural value of their land in exchange for placing properties in trust so they can’t be developed. Voorhees said his original opposition Thursday was because VanOeffelen has received some $1.2 million in federal farm aid and he questioned whether the county should be paying as well.

Denis Heffron, vice chairman of the county’s Agricultural Preservation Board, said VanOeffelen’s farm operations in Kent and Ottawa counties received that much federal aid during the course of 16 years. He estimated VanOeffelen received some $3,000 yearly in federal price supports on the 38 acres now included in the county preservation program.

“For the life of me, I don’t understand how one affects the other,” said Commissioner Tom Antor, R-Sparta. “If we have trouble with federal farm subsidies, we should take that up with Washington. What I’m concerned with is preserving quality farm land.

“We can open up a Pandora’s Box and start looking at all the other areas that receive federal subsidies,” he added. “If we want to go down that road we can.”

Other opponents of county funding for PDR like Commissioner Shana Shroll, R-Grand Rapids, argued the money would better be spent on veterans. Shroll, who is heading a committee studying the ever-growing needs of returning soldiers, noted those expenses are mandated by state law while PDR funding is not.

“I’m concerned that this becomes a buzz word and if this doesn’t pass whether the money would actually go to veterans,” said Commissioner Candace Chivis, D-Grand Rapids. County Adminsitrator Daryl Delabbio responded the county’s finance committee would have to make a recommendation for that to happen.

In the end, the county board voted 13-4 to approve preserving the new acreage, making for a total of 2,395 acres included in the program. Shroll was joined by commissioners Michael Wawee Jr., R-Walker, Nate Vriesman and Joel Freeman, both R-Byron Center in opposing the move.

Even staunch opponents of county funding for the program said the matter was decided during the county’s budget process last year. Commissioner Jim Saalfeld, R-Grand Rapids Township, reiterated long-held concerns that for the program to be successful it requires far more resources than the county can afford, but added officials spent the better part of last year going through the budget line by line to determine this year’s spending plan.

“To my recollection, everybody sitting here except the new commissioners and those who may have been absent voted for this budget,” Saalfeld said. “I do not think it’s good policy to back and second guess that process. That’s a dangerous precedent.”